1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spinning reel, and more particularly to a spool oscillating mechanism in the spinning reel.
2. Description of the Related Art
A spinning reel generally includes a reel body, a spool, a rotor, and a handle. The spool and the rotor are provided at the front end of the reel body. Rotating the handle rotates the rotor around the outside of the spool and oscillates the spool in its axial direction. Rotation of the rotor wraps fishing line, via a fishing line guide of the rotor, around a fishing line winding portion of the spool. The oscillating movement of the spool ensures that the fishing line is wrapped evenly over the entire fishing line winding portion.
To achieve this fishing line winding operation, the spinning reel includes a handle shaft, a spool shaft, a master gear, a pinion gear, and a spool oscillating mechanism. The handle shaft is rotatably supported on the reel body. The master gear is coaxially and integrally provided on the handle shaft. The spool shaft extends in a front-to-rear direction of the reel body and is oscillatably supported by the reel body. The spool is fixed to the spool shaft. The pinion gear is provided integrally with the rotor and is meshingly engaged with the master gear. The master gear and the pinion gear are provided with a gear ratio for accelerating rotational speed of the rotor as much as possible in order to increase the amount of fishing line that is wound each time the handle is rotated once.
The spool oscillating mechanism includes a traverse camshaft, a slider member, and a driven gear. The traverse camshaft extends in parallel with the spool shaft and is rotatably supported by the reel body. A cam groove is formed in the outer peripheral surface of the traverse camshaft. The cam groove has a spiral shape that intersects itself by circling around the traverse camshaft at one portion thereof and then circling back again. The slider member is fixed to the spool shaft and has a pawl engaged in the cam groove. The slider member moves in the lengthwise direction of the traverse camshaft upon rotation of the traverse camshaft. The driven gear is provided coaxially and integrally with the traverse cam. The driven gear is drivingly connected to the pinion gear by direct or indirect meshing engagement with the pinion gear.
Rotation of the handle rotates the master gear about its axis to rotate the pinion gear, and consequently the rotor. The rotation of the pinion gear also drives oscillating movement of the spool via the spool oscillating mechanism. That is, the rotation of the pinion gear rotates the driven gear and rotation of the driven gear rotates the traverse camshaft about its axis, so that slider member moves frontward and rearward along the traverse camshaft because of engagement the pawl in the cam groove. This movement of the slider member in its axial direction oscillates the spool shaft back and forth in its axial direction.
With this configuration, load that is generated both for rotating the rotor and for oscillating the spool is imparted on the pinion gear and the master gear, because the pinion gear, which is meshingly engaged with the master gear, is integral with the rotor and is also engaged with the driven gear of the spool oscillating mechanism. As a result, a great deal of force is required to turn the handle. Also, the master gear and the pinion gear can easily break down or wear out from friction, which lessens durability of the spinning reel overall.
Further, the accelerated rotation of the pinion gear is directly transmitted to the driven gear of the traverse camshaft. Therefore, the traverse camshaft also rotates faster for every rotation of the rotor. As a result, the spool oscillates at a higher frequency so that the fishing line is wound onto the fishing line winding portion of the spool with only a small gap between adjacent windings. Consequently, a shorter length of fishing line is wound onto the fishing line winding portion per each oscillation of the spool. The spool must be made bigger in order to increase the length of fishing line wound per oscillation, but this would render the spinning reel bulky and heavy.
The latter problem can be solved by reducing the spiral pitch of the traverse cam groove in order to reduce the length that the spool shaft moves per each rotation of the traverse camshaft. However, a traverse camshaft with such a narrow pitch groove would be difficult to machine and expensive to produce. Moreover, the traverse camshaft would have low mechanical strength because the peak areas between adjacent turns of the groove are narrower, which reduces durability of the traverse camshaft.
On the other hand, a transmission can be provided for decelerating speed from the pinion gear to the driven gear. However, as described above it is desirable that the pinion gear rotate at a high rotational speed to increase the rotational speed of the rotor, which increases the fishing line winding length for each rotation of the handle. In order to cancel out the increased rotational speed of the pinion gear, the driven gear of the traverse camshaft must be made with a diameter that is almost equal to the diameter of the master gear. Such a construction is not practical, because such a bulky driven gear would require an excessively bulky installation space. If the gear ratio between the master gear and the pinion gear is set to near 1:5, then a gear ratio between the pinion gear and the driven gear of 5:1 would result in the driven gear being turned once for every turn of the master gear. In order to rotate the driven gear less than once for each turn of the master gear, the gear ratio between the pinion gear and the driven spiral gear would have to be increased even further, which would require the gears after the pinion gear to have a large diameter, which would require more space in the reel body. Also, each acceleration or deceleration transmission results in a loss of drive force. That is, a deceleration transmission is a situation wherein one turn of a drive-source side gear results in less than one turn of a downstream-side gear. Similarly, an acceleration transmission is a situation wherein one turn of a drive-source side gear results in more than one turn of a downstream-side gear. A situation wherein one turn of a drive-source side gear results in one turn of a downstream-side gear will be referred to as a synchronous transmission hereinafter.
Japanese Utility Model Publication No. SHO-60-26626 discloses a spinning reel similar to the above described conventional spinning reel, wherein a pinion gear is integrally and coaxially connected to a rotor and a driven gear is integrally and coaxially connected to a traverse camshaft. The pinion gear is engaged with a master gear. An intermittent feed gear and an intermediate transmission gear are additionally provided. The intermittent feed gear is provided integrally with the pinion gear so that the intermittent feed gear is rotatable together with the rotation of the pinion gear. The intermediate transmission gear is interposed between the intermittent feed gear and the driven gear and results in a deceleration transmission to the traverse camshaft.
Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No.HEI-11-86 discloses a spinning reel with a gear shaft that integrally links rotation of a pinion gear and a traverse cam shaft. The gear shaft is supported on the reel body and has a helical gear at one portion and a worm gear at another portion. The helical gear is meshingly engaged with a helical gear of the pinion gear and the worm gear is in meshing engagement with a worm wheel provided on the traverse cam shaft. This configuration results in a deceleration transmission from the handle to the traverse camshaft.
However, in both of these configurations, the pinion gear, which is subjected to an acceleration transmission, drives both a mechanism for rotating the rotor and a mechanism for oscillating the spool. Therefore, these configurations only overcome the above-described problem of how to reduce the oscillation pitch of the spool. They still include all of the other problems described above. Furthermore, extra housing space is required to house the intermittent gear and the intermediate gear, or the gear shaft, the helical gear, and the worm gear, which results in a bulkier and heavier reel body.
Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 3-31860 discloses a spinning reel wherein rotation of the master gear and the traverse cam shaft are integrally linked by gears and an intermediate shaft supported on the reel body. That is, a spur gear is formed on the outer peripheral surface of the master gear and a helical gear is provided on a traverse cam shaft. A spur gear meshingly engaged with the spur gear of the master gear and a helical gear meshingly engaged with the helical gear of the traverse cam shaft are fixed to the intermediate shaft. With this configuration, the system for driving oscillating movement of the spool is separate from the pinion gear. However, the master gear is subjected to abrasion from the load applied in its axial direction by the pinion gear and also in its radial direction by the spur gear of the master gear, and so is easily damaged. The problem of the reel having poor durability remains. Also, housing space is required to house the spur gear of the master gear, the helical gear, and the intermediate shaft, which results in a bulkier and heavier reel body.
Unexamined Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 7-44132 discloses a spinning reel with a connection gear that is formed with an integral small-diameter spur gear and large-diameter helical gear that link drive of a hollow handle shaft and a traverse cam shaft. The small-diameter spur gear is in meshing engagement with a spur gear provided on the hollow handle shaft together with the master gear. The large-diameter helical gear is in meshing engagement with a helical gear provided on the traverse cam shaft. This configuration also separates the system for transmitting drive for oscillating the spool from the pinion. However, because the connection gear, which includes the integral small-diameter spur gear and large-diameter helical gear, is interposed between the spur gear of the hollow handle shaft and the helical gear of the traverse cam shaft, the small-diameter spur gear and large-diameter helical gear must be made thicker to increase the durability of the connection gear. The connection becomes more bulky, which results in a bulkier and heavier reel body. Also, spur gears can only be meshingly engaged in fixed directions, so the freedom of design is limited.
It is an objective of the present invention to overcome the above-described problems and provide a spinning reel that has only a small oscillating spool pitch for each single turn of the rotor so that a long length of fishing line can be wound for each single turn of the rotor without increasing the size of the spool, that has a simplified configuration and high freedom of design, and that is durable, compact, light-weight, and easy to operate.
In order to achieve the above-described problems, a spinning reel according to the present invention includes a reel body having a front portion; a shaft sleeve rotatably supported by the reel body; a handle shaft insertedely mounted in the shaft sleeve and rotatable integrally with the shaft sleeve; a handle connected to the handle shaft; a master gear coaxially and integrally provided on the shaft sleeve; a spool shaft extending in a frontward/rearward direction of the reel body and oscillatingly movably supported on the reel body; a spool fixed to the spool shaft and having a fishing line winding portion; a rotor positioned at the front portion of the reel body and rotatably supported by the reel body; a fishing line guide portion provided to the rotor for winding a fishing line over the fishing line winding portion upon rotation of the rotor; a pinion gear provided integrally with the rotor and meshingly engaged with the master gear; a traverse camshaft rotatably supported in parallel with the spool shaft by the reel body and formed with a cam groove; a slider member fixed to the spool shaft and having a pawl engaged with the cam groove, the slider member being movable in a lengthwise direction of the traverse camshaft upon rotation of the traverse camshaft; a driving spiral gear fixedly provided on the shaft sleeve at a position separated from the master gear; a driven spiral gear fixedly provided on the traverse camshaft; and at least one intermediate spiral gear for transmitting rotation of the driving spiral gear to the driven spiral gear.
With this configuration, the mechanism for transmitting drive force from the handle shaft to oscillate the spool, that is, the driving spiral gear, the at least one intermediate spiral gear, and the driven spiral gear, is independent from the mechanism for transmitting drive force from the handle shaft to rotate the rotor, that is, the master gear and the pinion shaft. As a result, the load on the master gear and the pinion gear is reduced, so that abrasion and damage to the master gear and the pinion gear is reduced.
If the outer diameter of the driving spiral gear is made smaller than the outer diameter of the master gear, then the load on the master gear and the pinion gear can be further reduced, and also the load required to rotate the handle can be reduced so that the handle can be rotated easily and rapidly, resulting in a more enjoyable fishing experience.
Also, if no acceleration transmission is performed at the initial stage for transmitting drive force from the shaft sleeve to the traverse cam shaft, the traverse cam shaft can be rotated by a reasonable number of times for each rotation of the rotor. This results in a small sliding oscillation pitch that increases the line winding length per handle turn without increasing the size of the spool, so that the spinning reel can be made more light-weight and compact.
Because the drive force from the shaft sleeve is transmitted to the traverse cam shaft through the intermediate spiral gear, rather than a spur gear for example, rotational force can be reliably and smoothly transmitted with little backlash. Moreover, spiral gears can be oriented with teeth extending either to intersect perpendicularly with or in parallel with the axial direction of the spool shaft. This enhances freedom of design for assembling the drive transmission mechanisms in the limited housing space of the reel body. Also, assembling operations can be simplified.
When only a single intermediate spiral gear is used to transmit drive from the driving spiral gear to the driven spiral gear, drive transmission loss and backlash can be suppressed to a minimum. Further, sliding spool oscillation can be smoothly performed. Also, configuration is simple and assembly is simplified. Also, because a minimum number of components are required, production costs and parts management costs can be reduced. Also, space required in the housing can be reduced so that the spinning reel can be made compact in size and light in weight.